It seems an unlikely pairing—Johnny Cash and an analysis of the American religious personality. Yet a new book by Rodney Clapp, editorial director of Brazos Press, holds up the tough-livin', hard-lovin', drug-usin' country and western icon as a prism that refracts the many contradictions of the American people, the most religious in the developed world. 

In Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction: Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation (Westminster John Knox Press, Feb.) Clapp describes how the singer, who died in 2003, epitomized the American character, all merit and mess. Like Cash, he argues, we are a people torn between hedonism and holiness, between innocence and violence, and between a longing for community and an insistence on vibrant individuality.

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Rupert Murdoch, Jane Friedman and new Zondervan CEO Moe Girkins hosted an event Feb. 20 at Le Cirque to launch A Friendly Dialogue Between an Atheist and a Christian by Zhao Qizheng, vice chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and evangelist Luis Palau. Left to Right: Ye Xiaowen (director general of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, PRC), Murdoch, Friedman, Girkins, Palau, Zhao Qizheng, Wu Wei (deputy director general, State Counsel Information Office), Xie Feng (minister and DCM of the Chinese Embassy in the U.S.).